Towards a Code of Conduct in Engineering and ICT

Sooner or later in our professional lives, we face ethical dilemma – a situation where the appropriate response is not clear, because the answer does not exist in a Rule or Policy.

When faced with such a situation, what would you do? The Engineering and ICTs professions propose to discuss this sensitive topic at the next WSIS summit, and invites all stakeholders to provide practical advice on handling a broad range of situations that can arise, in a form of a CODE of CONDUCT.

The Code could integrate three parts to meet different needs:

-> Code of Conduct articulating the application of our Core Values in our Relationships with stakeholders
-> A summary of the Code : the key messages in the Code, which all of us could spread around the world
-> A base/guidelines for Questions and Answers – where specific situations could be illustrated, and of course, regularly updated.

Moderator

Yvette Ramos, MSc. Eng.-MBA

Speakers / panellists

Welcome address and reason to be of the workshop, by Eng. Yvette RAMOS, présidente Swissengineering Romandie, Director Europe for the INWES(1).

State-of-art in Codes of Conduct in the Engineering world, by Raymond MOREL, Secretary General Ingénieurs du Monde, Swiss representative at IFIP General Assembly Geneva, Switzerland

Eng. M. Kamel AYADI, Minister, Minister Public and anti-corruption affairs, Tunisia, pastpresident of the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO) and Chair of the CACWFEO (Committee on Anti-Corruption) – video-conference –

Link to WSIS Action Lines

C1. The role of public governance authorities and all stakeholders in the promotion of ICTs for development

C3. Access to information and knowledge

C4. Capacity building

C5. Building confidence and security in the use of ICTs

C6. Enabling environment

C7. ICT Applications: E-government

C7. ICT Applications: E-learning

C7. ICT Applications: E-employment

C7. ICT Applications: E-science

C8. Cultural diversity and identity, linguistic diversity and local content

C9. Media

C10. Ethical dimensions of the Information Society

C11. International and regional cooperation

One concrete example could be the integration in the Code of Conduct of a commitment towards environment (C1. C7.C10.), where we, engineers in ICTs, and more generally engineers and architects woldwide, need to support the protection of the global environment and promotes environmentally
sound and sustainable economic development as a fundamental element of its poverty reduction strategies and actions.
We may need to work on mainstreaming Greening Programmes whenever possible and manage (measure, monitor and act) the impacts on the local and global environment and communities as a result of our activities, including :

1- Carefully consider and monitor the impact of projects on local environmental conservation and protection
2- Ensure that work is conducted in an environmentally responsible manner
3- Respect and comply with sound environmental principles and rules
4- Raise questions and concerns regarding conditions that might be harmful to human health, safety, and the environment
5- Being receptive to environmental concerns raised by partners, governments, and other stakeholders

Raymond Morel is a member of the Board of Directors at SI and is President of Social-IN3, a cooperative of a researchers’ convinced of the need to address new challenges of today's Information Age, which is slowly and surely modify the entire society.